60's Pop Power Vs Plastic Pop Remake

Peter Watkins' Privilege is a depressingly prescient dystopia about the manipulation of the masses by a manufactured Pop icon in some distant future. Paul Jones of Manfred Mann plays Steve Shorter a rather simple all singing & dancing puppet of Authority roped in to do everything from boost agricultural output to revitalise the nations spirituality so it's hardly a surprise that he starts to rebel. Though filmed in 1967 the film's blunt satire still has punch in our age of X-Factor/Got Talent/blurgh that fills the small screen but it's not exactly subtle and I wasn't a fan of the musical numbers. Regardless this is still a nice slice of 60's social-scifi.

And Soon The Darkness is a nice Fuest/Clements thriller about some girls getting in trouble on a cycle run I've mentioned previously. Anyways the 2010 remake is out and unsurprisingly it's not a patch, it embellishes the plot quite successfully and has a jauntier pace but it sheds the original's brooding atmosphere by adopting a standard explanatory narrative and employing some seriously under-skilled actors. Don't get me wrong it's not terrible just another mediocre, simplified rehash of something that's come before.